Nicaragua

[Laurence Horn]

At 7:39 AM -0700 4/7/05, FRITZ JUENGLING wrote:
>Out of curiosity, how is Whalley pronounced in those parts?
>Probably [w] at the beginning, but what about the first vowel?

The first syllable is that of "whale" or "wail" (which we don't
distinguish here, although I suppose if we did it would be the
former).  So basically not a really BIG whale, but a cute little
whalie.

>
>Funny, I guess that wouldn't have leapt to mind, but we have three
>streets that come together in downtown New Haven, near Yale, that are
>named for the Regicides:  Gough, Dixwell, and Whalley.  (They hung
>out around here, so they wouldn't hang elsewhere.)  And Gough is
>indeed (still) pronounced "Goff" in these parts (although usually
>with an [a] rather than an open-o, but that's another story).
>
>Larry